Gespenster
by Ashlee Sherman
Summary: Ghosts aren't just souls, you know. Old and discontinued as of 2011.
1. Author's Notes

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Author's Note: Hello. Some of you may be wondering--those who have followed this story or favorited it--why the entire story's been deleted. Weeell, I've decided, after such a long absence, to try to revamp it and make it better. A lot of things have change: my writing skill, the plot, the actual characters and the TV show... I have a lot more to work with! It will follow a similar plot of the original fanfiction, but you won't know it, because the older one was _barely_ into the plot, anyway.

Anyhow, here's the newer, better version. I do hope you enjoy it!

--Ashlee Sherman

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	2. 0000001: Boushi

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"I'll be in the net.

I'll be in the core of the Earth.

I'll be in your dreams and nightmares.

I'll be the despair in your voice when you fade away.

Remember me, because I will remember you, my old friend."

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0000001. Boushi

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Niihama-shi

04.10.33

There was always something about the harbor, something like a sinister aura that had bound itself tightly around the area late in the night. It felt like spirits floated past the workers every time they walked on for the night shift, and when the cyborgs went by on their way to anywhere, they all swore they could feel their minds scramble for an instant. Even if these strange occurrences had only plagued the docks for a year or so… it made the world that wrapped around its stalwart seas uneasy.

Once, a man claimed to see a beautiful virgin maiden, dressed in all white with red stains smacked across her dress, her velvet black hair cupping her sad face in the wind. A lot of people wouldn't doubt that this was the case--in fact, many of the sailors had their myths, their conspiracies. It was probably a phantom specter, a godhead with a gentle touch that would whisper like a flute's notes glided on the air.

One day, the morning shift found her body thrown from the rooftop of the B-7 warehouse, her head slammed in so hard that her brain glittered through a coating of skull fragments. The myths ended for a few days until the beautiful child returned to her spot near their ears, still whispering, still standing and watching the sea as it lapped at the wooden planks under this child's white feet.

Every day, she would stand there, and no one could even come close to her before she merely faded away into the dark like a phantasm ending, a star burning out only to be reborn once more. The same little white speck among the stars.

One day, the morning shift found a body floating in the swaying currents. This one was still alive, chest stuttering with unfixable lungs. Her big brown eyes stared up and only up, up toward the heavens like a pleading angel. They said, 'make me better, please, make me better', and she would die before the human hands could raise her up again.

None of the people without cyberbrains could see her watching the sunset; the cyberbrain was the link between themselves and this doomed girl. However, the _bodies_ were very real, very torn and destroyed, seen by anyone with eyes. Sometimes, the bodies would speak weakly.

"I would like to die now."

And again, repeat,

"I would like to die now."

Because Osaka Bay was her favorite place to give up the ghost. Because Osaka Bay--something about Yamasaki Harbor--was a cage eternal for her, her poor soul flashing electric-flash blue in the grand, never-ending mesh of ghosts: the net.

Trapped, even though the net is a vast and infinite place.

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Niihama-shi 

05.10.33

One. Two. One. Two. Punch, step back, punch, kick.

The hooked bag swung hard every time his muscles tightened, the four rounded spheres at the top of his hand sharpening when he made a fist. Those untainted knuckles slammed hard into the red sack's thick exterior, and it would've flown toward the ceiling if not for the hook, the graciousness of the metal securing that large thing to one spot.

Batou swung his arm around and hit the punching bag again. His brow clenched around his eyes as he grunted, pulled away, and silently observed the dimple he made in the side. He smirked a little.

"You fight like a common street thug," The Major said from behind, darkly red eyes peering not at him, but at the flickering light above him. When she finally did look into her colleague's fake eyes, she smiled a little at his sneer.

"I fight just fine, thank you," he replied bitterly, albeit showing by his silence that she was more than likely right. But when he fought… that animosity took him over. He'd rather fight sloppily than neatly if it meant giving him that sensation he yearned for again:

Adrenaline-soaked power.

He knew it, and she knew it. Batou was an emotional man, who just so happened to have a shell that concealed this fact well. When he called out miserably for Motoko, thinking she'd been killed--no, further back, during the Marco Amereti case--The Major knew his heart was not as strong as he wished it to be.

She and the tall cyborg walked up the stairs, down through the halls, the silence of the world around them deceiving. Their minds were filled with dialogue, some exchanged, some kept to themselves, all for their 'ears' only. When they both opened the door to Chief Daisuke Aramaki's office, they were both met with looks from the other Section 9 staff.

Dark grey mist drifted up and dissipated over Paz's head like an arrow pointing at him as the smoker of the wolf pack; he turned slowly and nodded at Batou. Saitou sat with an ankle propped on a knee, laid back deep in the body of the couch. Borma sat next to him, a gentle-looking giant with his hands slapped courteously on his shins, and next to him, was a exhausted looking Ishikawa sporting a newspaper and a cup of coffee.

Of course, there was also Togusa, who leaned in and spoke quietly with Zahran Coetzee, a rough-and-rumble rookie to Section 9 who didn't seem much like a rookie. The African warrior's head bobbed as he listened to the human's rant, but both of their attentions fell on the newcomers.

Aramaki cleared his throat as Motoko and Batou sat alongside their fellow members. The large screen built into the wall flashed and changed into a wall of information, a ballet of black and green.

"Today the Niihama Prefecture Police have confirmed 1,000 dead female bodies located near the waters of the Yamasaki Harbor, 100,000 feet under. All of them appear to be the ages of 8 or 9 years of age, and all of them range in the length of time they've been down there."

Togusa wrinkled his nose in disgust. It was not the way he wanted to start the day, obviously. "Why the hell would that even be possible? Are you telling me that we're looking for a serial killer who magically drops off corpses without _anyone _seeing him do it?"

"And why was Section 9 sucked into this so quickly? Any political complications?" Zahran added in, his dark eyes mirroring the team's inner revulsion for the deed. He attempted to keep his emotion bottled tight as usual, though the thought of children getting tossed after God-only-knows-what happened to them made his skin crawl.

"Here's the thing..." Ishikawa started. The screen turned to a shot of some of the more recent bodies pulled from the deep blue ocean. Not only were these girls all naked and alike physically, but they all seemed to match in hair style and color as well. Batou's eyes caught on quick.

"They're… all exactly alike… faces 'n all."

"Dolls?" Saitou asked, blinking away the tiny trace of surprise in his one eye. "They're all robots, then? That would explain why Section 9 is being brought into this--unidentified and large amounts of androids not legally manufactured in Japan would be considered a huge danger, especially if it gets out into the public. The Prime Minister must have her pretty little hands full right about now."

Ishikawa nodded. "You're right about a lot of points," He drank the last of his coffee, a good starter for his weary mind. "They are unidentified and are big in amounts, and that scares the hell outta' the Japanese government and the Cabinet Intelligence Agency. If word breaks out about this, it'll be a media frenzy."

"They've managed to keep this whole mess covered still, even when pulling up these guys from the bay? I've gotta' admit, they're pretty damn good at what they do," Paz said.

The Major folded up her arms under her breasts and sighed. "Chief, what else is there that makes you so uneasy? Obviously, considering we had other high profile cases, this is a rather important state of affairs."

Aramaki walked back to his desk, sitting down quietly as the large screen blinked onto the next image. This was of one of the children sliced in a Y-Incision fashion, no doubt from a coroner's scalpel. Instead of seeing wires and metal skeletons, Section 9's members were treated to the sight of wrinkled lungs and wet, bloody organs, their ivory bones bright enough to flash through.

Batou's mouth dropped, and he didn't have to look around to know the others had faces similar to his own.

"You're telling me that those kids are all human beings? Flesh and blood? That's just not possible! Even if the advances in technology and cloning, you can't just make clones like that. Forget that it's fucking unethical--no, we've already seen that none of the bad guys care about shit like that--but look at the incredibility here. Where the hell would they get the funds, the data, the _location_ to do something this big?"

"Whoever did this has to have a lot of thugs," added Borma solemnly, stroking his thick chin and staring at the pictures.

"The coroner has reported that the organs found in these little girls' bodies aren't the same as natural human organs," Aramaki said, "They're all artificial. This is no different than the case of Dr. Frankenstein…"

Togusa finally peeled his eyes from the screen. "Chief, I'm having a hard time accepting the fact that you can _create_ organs. Transplants with healthy, already used guts, sure, but ones just made out of thin air? No way..."

"I suppose this is why we're on the case," The Major spoke, tapping her foot. "Is there any trace of these bodies or their blood on the ships in the harbor?"

Aramaki shook his head. "I think that it would be a ship outside of Niihama… No fool would so easily place their mode of transportation out in the open when they've committed such a criminal act. Even if that were the case, every nook and cranky has been looked into. There's nothing obvious."

"…Were these children once alive?" Togusa asked quietly, the touch of fatherhood in his life turning his voice bitter.

"We can't say for sure. We're still looking into just what makes these Frankenstein bodies tick. What we do know is that they couldn't have lived long without extreme maintenance. I'm pretty sure they are all rough sketches of the perfect, completed form; they are all lacking stomachs that can properly digest food. They would die from the lack of minerals, proteins, and the like."

Borma's eyes lowered, gaze downcast in his thought. "Just who would do this?"

"A sick bastard," Batou growled. "He'd probably a sick pervert, or some violent son-of-a-bitch creating them to use in some underground skirt-chasing committee. Or maybe he's planning a full-scale attack on us all."

"We can't assume it's only one man," Zahran quickly pressed on.

"But we can't assume it's more than one, either," The Major said, standing up. "Things this wide scale have always been the work of one man, in my experience. Sure, he'll have the lackeys or peons who wouldn't know their head from their ass, but other than that, it's always been solo."

Obviously, she was referring to Kuze and The Laughing Man. They wouldn't want to admit it, but Section 9 had once or twice slipped into the role of _'unknowing pawn'_.

Aramaki slapped a hand down. "We'll split this up as well as we can, considering we don't have much to go on. I want Togusa and Batou to go to the docks and find out any information you can from the workers there--we've had numerous reports that they've seen 'phantoms' who look very much like this modeled girl. While I'm not one for ghost stories, I have a certain ghost of my own to follow."

The Major smiled a little, as the withered old man continued, " Also, there were four identical bodies found before the 1,000 were--of these four, three were drowned and one had fallen from the roof of the warehouse." He turned. "Ishikawa and Borma, look through the media and see if you can find any foreign ships on radar scans, security cameras, or log books. I don't want one page of information overlooked."

"Roger that."

"And Paz and Saitou will need to talk to the medical examiners that had checked out the dead bodies. If you find anything that seems out of place, don't fail to bring it up. Major, you'll be going with Zahran and myself to pay The Prime Minister a little visit."

Everyone got to their feet in a flash, but their minds already felt weary. Without evidence, suspects, or IDs to help them along, they knew they were going to have a drawn-out and painful job to do. They all only hoped that the Individual Eleven and refugee incident hadn't torn down their strength.

As they walked out of the big office, a chill ran down Togusa's spine.

_'Do you know Josephine Butler?' _a voice murmured into his ears, so quiet that he could not hear it clearly. He turned and looked at the empty meeting space, his heart faltering a little in beats. He sighed and left the cold and dim room.

* * *

_A/N: A slow-paced but much needed intoduction into this case._


	3. 0000002: Ningenmi

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"As a floating straw indicates the flow of the tide, so there are certain expressions that have become almost proverbial and till lately have passed unchallenged in conversation and in literature, plainly revealing the double standard of morality which society has accepted. One of these expressions is, "He is only sowing his wild oats;" another is, that "a reformed profligate makes a good husband." The latter is a sentiment so gross that I would not repeat it, if it were not necessary to do so - as a proof of the extent of the aberration of human judgment in this matter."

The Double Standard of Morality

Josephine Butler, _The Philanthropist_ (October, 1886)

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0000002. Ningenmi

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Paz leaned back against the car, his metal body's lungs forming within his mouth something close to a sigh. He lit up a cigarette, and held it limply at his side, the gray smoke floating up past his head in thick wisps. When he pressed it to his lips and breathed in, that dark mist had been vacuumed into him. It dwelled there, swirling in darkness, and left as soon as it entered.

If anyone enjoyed being steel and bolts, it was he. If he hadn't been a robot, he would've had to indulge in nicotine while body rotted from the inside out. Perhaps he was--and no one seemed to know this by looking at him--too big of a optimist, thinking that such a life was the best. But it had beat being a human gang member. Too many knife cuts for his liking--he preferred a form that could be fixed.

Fixed, he thought, somewhat bitterly, _I sound like I'm a doll, don't I? _

"You're thinking too much again," Saitou said, walking up on the slick-haired man with a smirk on his face. Paz scoffed, knowing the look he had on his face gave him all away. Normally, that never happened… but if there was one person in the world who could read a poker face and make the best one, it was good ol' Saitou.

"Am I now?" Paz retorted slowly, putting his cigarette out on his hand and slipping it absent-mindedly into the inner pocket of his jacket. The ash sat, smeared on the top of his hand. It reminded him of evil blood, dried from long past.

Saitou said nothing, instead taking up a spot in the car as the driver. Paz was more than willing to take the passenger's seat, laying back with arms tucked behind his head. He was never one for driving, even if he did do it often in emergencies. He tended to drift off in his own head.

"Off to the coroner's?" he asked. He tried not to sound interested, telling himself the case wasn't too big a deal. No case was too big a deal to him--except for the ones that hurt his teammates.

He rather disliked when people fucked around with his team.

"Yeah. I've got a feeling that something big's going down. Section 9 isn't Section 9 until shit hit's the fan at least once a year. I wouldn't be surprised if we get dragged into an ocean of bull."

"That is normally the case, isn't? We're all enemies when it comes to the CIA, FBI, hell, even the Prime Minister keeps her nose up in the air when she talks to us. I'd say we're basically hated until the stupid bastards actually need us to do some dirty work."

Saitou grunted a little, not taking his eye off the road. "You're in a pretty cranky mood today. Any reason why? You're not one to pace and grumble."

"Oh. You saw that, hm? I forgot your Hawkeye tells on people all the time."

A smirk, but soon it was downcast. "You looked bothered."

"I was," Paz retorted somberly. "I've been having some flashbacks from my old days. It's pretty aggravating, actually. I was thinking of getting those memories blocked so I wouldn't have to see them anymore… But then I wouldn't feel like myself."

"Normally, that's the general response they get from people who undergo the op."

"Yeah." Paz sat up a little more, his fake lungs offering some much needed oxygen to his brain. He felt a little more clear-headed. He liked the feeling. "These flashbacks remind me of Rosa."

Saitou suspected as much. "Your daughter."

"Even though it's been so many years after she passed away, this case still manages to take me back. Perhaps I need some time off after this. I haven't taken a vacation at all since I joined Public Safety."

"…This case isn't going to bother you, is it? Whether you like it or not, you've got a human brain in that big head of yours."

Paz furrowed his brow at the comment. "Cute. But no, I'll be fine. It's not _that_ bad. I won't be needing a shrink or anything, so stop playing mom."

Saitou smiled at his friend. "Right. Sorry. Well, we're here. It seems they've been expecting us, I guess."

Paz leaned out the window, watching small figures in the parking lot take the form of armored, uniformed men with some light artillery. He reached into his pocket for an ID, feeling his bent up cigarette as he went along.

"Bet your ass they're here. With such a major case, they wouldn't let anyone through the back doors unless your fucking labeled across the forehead with official identifications."

As the car rolled to a stop, Saitou and Paz both flicked out their cards. The tollgate slowly lifted and they were allowed into the lower parking lots. Paz stepped out of the car, arm laid lazily over the top of the doorframe. "Looks pretty desolate in here for the circumstances."

"Chances are no one knows about this yet."

The two walked with hands in pockets, the elevator taking them up to their final destinations. The halls inside the more secluded area of the building had the occasional nurse pass by, perhaps with a cart or clipboard. It occurred to Paz that the Major could easily take over one of them and spy on them to make sure they were being good little boys. The thought was random and fleeting.

"Welcome to my lab," the coroner, Dr. Harvey, said in messy Japanese that the two could tell was no older than five years. The man must've had smarts if he was allowed on the case. He shook their hands with a Cheshire smile wrapped by dimples and a pair of large cheekbones. He had to have been no older than Togusa. It rather surprised them.

He led them into the bright room, where rows of bodies lay across the coldness of the tin tables. The bodies were all the same, all equal in size and all identical in their faces. Paz noticed his natural-bodied friend shiver quietly, but he wasn't sure if it was out of the creeps or the iciness of the place.

"The interrogation isn't doing too well. They're not talking! I even tried tickling their feet," Harvey said, goofiness layering his voice like the icing of a cake. It occurred to them that he was a dorky one. Paz did suspect the man used it as a way to ignore the fact that he cuts into once-living, innocent children everyday. This day was different in a lot of ways for him, but the overall feeling in his gut must've been the same. The way he lifted the blanket from one face and 'tsk'ed like a disappointed police officer made it all the more patent.

"I looked into their bodies. Not too normal, that they aren't. Their bones are all chiseled down like Michelangelo did to his statues--it's certain that their ribs weren't originally ribs at all, but some sort of material cut down to form 'em. I sent a sample to the lab to figure out just what the hell it is. We'll have to see."

Paz leaned in while Saitou did the nodding. He stared into the darkness of one child's organs, his brow furrowed in thought. Whoever made them--even if they were insane and planning some sinister--had an eye for realism. The heart looked like any normal human heart. The liver was a liver, and the stomach a stomach. He couldn't really tell them all that much apart, even with his enhanced eyes.

Not even Saitou could see a difference with his eye, he thought. 

"Did you find anything peculiar with them?" Saitou asked.

"Ah, well, I didn't notice anything weird with the body other than the fact that it's all created from scratch, which I already reported to you in my writings. There is one or two more things…" He took up the child's limp, ashen arm, the skin damaged by water. There on her arm was the number four. "They're all numbered certain numbers. So far, we've got all 1,023... Sort of… See here?"

He walked to another girl, who looked less swollen and destroyed, and lifted her arm. Again, there was a number, but it was the very last of the batch: 1,027."

Paz froze. He was quick to realize what Saitou did as well.

"Wait… Are you telling us this is the last number possible? Not all of the numbers are accounted for? That number is four off."

Harvey nodded grimly, rubbing his chin, the hairs of his salt and pepper bread swaying. "That means they either seriously fucked up their counting, which I highly doubt judging by the intricacy of the work, or there are four bodies unaccounted for."

Paz and Saitou exchanged worried glances, and for the first time in the case, Paz felt a concern well inside his chest that he hadn't felt since the Refugee Incident at Dejima. He wasn't sure why, but his gut told him that those four bodies would inevitably make or break the case already.

"Let's get this information to the Chief. I'm sure he'll want to know that we've got some missing girls on our hands." Paz looked to Dr. Harvey. "Anything else that'll be of importance? Anything at all?"

Harvey nodded. "I wanted to hand off something else to you. All of them had been bound at the ankles and dropped into the ocean attached to cement weights. In all likelihood, they have the ability to move, make noise, and observe. I think they may even have had ghosts… and what a tragedy if that is--was--the case."

Dr. Harvey hesitated, and then motioned them with a big hand to follow. They walked a short distance to the end of the row, where yet another body sat. He lifted the sheet off of her up until her belly button. Paz and Saitou's eyes grew wide at the sight of the child's stomach, where the words, 'Daddy's Little Whore' were etched into her skin.

"We also found bruises on the thighs and damage in and around the vagina that suggests molestation… Almost all of the girls have some form of sexual abuse."

Paz's eyes softened, as he touched the mauled skin gently, the words running roughly under his fingers. "Those sons-of-_bitches_."

Paz looked into the girl's clouded gray eyes, seeing a reflection of his dead daughters all in that instant. They must've been no older than Rosa when his own kind had plunged the cold steel blade right between her little ribs.

This time, _he_ shuddered. And it wasn't simply the cold.

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A/N: Even though I'm concerned that I don't portray Saitou and Paz right, I wouldn't say that Paz or Saitou are _out of character_... mainly because it's hard to pin down exactly how they are. While 2nd Gig does give them moments to shine, I still don't get a sense of how they are as a whole individual... I'm merely getting a blueprint.

I mean, they _have_ to moments were the human side of them takes over, and not the soldier side... right?

Also, Paz's daughter was a thought before I started the fanfiction. The reason why I did it was because a.) Paz had _way_ too much ass in his day to _not _knock up a girl, and b.) I wanted a way to tie him in to be closer to the case than originally intended. Mainly because I'm very fond of him and Saitou, and, if anything, I wanted to give them both a little spark of life, perhaps make them talk like normal people do.

Because hey, they are guys after all.

Now, I'm a fifteen year old girl, so maaaybe I'm not all that big on guy talk or how it feels to lose a daughter, but I _am_ trying here, people. oo

I'm not sure if Batou and Togusa at the dock will be the next chapter, or Ishikawa and Borma at the computers back at headquarters. But whatever the case is, please review and tell me what you think! The truth of the matter is, fanfiction artist's enthusiasm and ability to make a new chapter is fueled by reviews:)


	4. 0000003: Howaitonoizu

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"Here we are at once brought into contact with the false and misleading idea that the essence of right and wrong is in some way dependent on sex. We never hear it carelessly or complacently asserted of a young woman that "she is only sowing her wild oats." This is not a pleasant aspect of the question; but let us deal faithfully with it. It is a fact, that numbers even of moral and religious people have permitted themselves to accept and condone in man what is fiercely condemned in woman."

The Double Standard of Morality

Josephine Butler, _The Philanthropist_ (October, 1886)

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0000003. Howaitonoizu

Things never tended to work themselves out for poor ol' Ishikawa. In most instances, he ended up getting crucial information for the team… but in the end, he'd get a head wound --and be a.) in pain and b.) on lots of pain_killers_--by the time things climaxed and settled. Now that he couldn't find any information to help his team, he was _actually _frustrated. He looked at the bright side, that his head would stay in one piece… but it still ticked him off…

There was no footage. No, there _was _footage, but it was nothing but fucking white noise, television static, for the cameras pointing toward the sea. There wasn't an image of a ship dropping off dead children's bodies into the bay, nor was there a face at the port that he could automatically write as foreign and suspect. There was the possibility--actually, a very large possibility--that the people who worked at the dock were the ones fully or semi-responsible for the gruesome crime.

"They obviously have good hackers on their side, whoever they are," Borma said from Ishikawa's side, lifting the binocular-like contraption from his eyes. "No logs, no trace of video footage, no nothing, not even on radar… This is a phantom case, it seems, at least until _they_ make another move."

Ishikawa rubbed his beard, biting his lip. "I'd hate to say that, but you're right…"

Borma sat back. "Paz and Saitou reported some news to us, though… These kids were… uh, violated. I think they may have been involved in some brothel-like getup."

Ishikawa blinked, and his eyes softened. _Molested, huh? Fucking beautiful…_

"Makes sense," he said, softer than he expected. "Japan's falling from grace more and more as the years go on."

Borma smiled. "Ah, our generation, eh? The good breed?"

"We were no saints, but we looked it, compared to today's census. God, it seemed that technology's made us robots as well. We're starting to mesh to the point where I don't think we can pull apart anymore. The net, artificial intelligence, the human being… it's a trinity that is plagued by coalescence."

Ishikawa grunted, pushing himself into a better position, and chewed on his nail--when he start _that _little habit up?

Borma sighed, leaning back into his seat. "Personally, I think we might as well all go into the net, if you wanna' get rid of the death and destruction of simple life as a human being."

Ishikawa glanced at him. "Then why don't you?"

"Fear, I think it is." His round, red eyes reflected the monitor in front of him in the oozing darkness behind the two. He smiled a little, leaning back. "Then again, maybe I just don't have a problem with the life I have now, here in the real world. It's actually not so bad. I get all the pizza I can handle, working here…"

He stood up, his bulky frame a wave of green and black shadows in Ishikawa's point of view. The faint trace of a smile was visible on the bald man's face, an amused one. He must've seen the childish curiosity in Ishikawa's dark eyes.

"Want some coffee?" Borma asked. Ishikawa's answer was obvious.

"_Hell_ yes."

When the man left the murky room, Ishikawa leaned back as his friend had, his arms pressed back behind his head. He stared absentmindedly at the computer screen, which blurred as his mind wandered elsewhere. It remained that way for a while until a screen popped up, snapping him out of his random thoughts.

He leaned in, mouth parting, breathing outward toward the words typing themselves on his screen. It seemed impossible. He thought it was--the firewalls and blocks on their system was of the best.

What the fuck was good enough to hack through it?

"…'And do you see the logical necessity involved in this?' It wrote, _'It is that a large section of female society has to be told off--set aside, so to speak, to minister to the irregularities of the excusable man.' _

"Well, I'll tell them. I'll tell all of those disgusting men who dared _laid their stained fingers on _me._ What will you do, Section 9? What will you do, hm? You've seen their mark on the shores of your city. You've seen their despicable acts. Will you be the ones to kill me in order to save the beasts? _

"It's just as Josephine Butler says… 'It is a fact, that numbers even of moral and religious people have permitted themselves to accept and condone in man what is fiercely condemned in woman.'

"…Even after the agonies the woman had to go through.

I will kill every one of those beasts… starting with Kenji Mikimura."

Ishikawa jumped up in his seat, linking the cord from his cyberbrain into the computer, to combat whatever the hell was sneaking into their base. He growled in anger as he realized that the person had gotten away as easily as they entered, before he could even link up to the net. This person slipped through his fingers like fine sand.

This _person_ was on a mission, and he couldn't stop it. What did it have to do with the identical bodies?

Borma re-entered to find a disturbed Ishikawa and a strange message on the monitor. He stared for a long time at the words in simple Times New Roman font, and then turned to Ishikawa with a face filmed over with surprise.

"Th-this is a _death threat _toward the Section 6 member Kenji Mikimura…! Who the hell sent this?! We need to alert the Chief ASAP!"

Ishikawa nodded at him. "One step ahead of you. I gave him the situation--he and the Major are getting a move-on to locate Mikimura and warn him of dangers. The Prime Minister's got some top-notch guys contacting him. They're also sending out Paz and Saitou to Mikimura's location to keep an eye on him… He could be a suspect and a victim wrapped in one."

The two sat there for a moment.

"No sign of traces? Can't even follow the IP?" Borma asked tentatively.

"As much as I hate to admit it, these guy slipped through our hands before I could even think of tailing him. It's a pro's job--that's for sure. But I think this hacker's a woman, judging by the message. 'It is a fact, that numbers even of moral and religious people have permitted themselves to accept and condone in man what is fiercely condemned in woman.'. That's not a man's words. Those are fighting words from a female, all right."

"Hm… No film, no logs, no trace, no anything… only a damned note. We're in over our head." Borma paused, glancing at the coffee he had forgotten about in his two, big hands. "…Coffee?" he asked hesitantly, offering a cup of what Ishikawa saw as dark, sleepless nights.

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A/N: Another short one, sorry... but it does push things forward fairly well. And remember, if you like this story, reviews make me work faster.


	5. 0000004: Ranzatsu

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* * *

_

And do you see the logical necessity involved in this? It is that a large section of female society has to be told off--set aside, so to speak, to minister to the irregularities of the excusable man. That section is doomed to death, hurled to despair; while another section of womanhood is kept strictly and almost forcibly guarded in domestic purity. Thus even good and moral men have so judged in regard to the vice of sexual immorality as to concede in social opinion all that the male profligate can desire. This perverse social and public opinion is no small incentive to immorality. It encourages the pernicious belief that men may be profligate when young without serious detriment to their character in after-life. This is not a belief that is borne out by facts.

The Double Standard of Morality

Josephine Butler, _The Philanthropist_ (October, 1886)

* * *

0000004. Ranzatsu

* * *

The docks at the mouth of Osaka bay were relatively calm, the ocean waters lapping at the wooden spikes that kept the wooden piers in place. It seemed like the only color around the area was blue and brown, constantly swirling together in one's vision. And although there were a fairly large amount of workers, they worked silently, swiftly, their eyes always focused on the next task; they were tense people, however, Batou had a feeling that they weren't always that way. He knew that the case they had been working on was wringing these worker's necks.

He stood with one of them--an immigrant named Abdul Haq who had chit-chatted with him about the chaos in his motherland, about his troubles getting over into Japan. He even lifted his worker's uniform to show the Section 9 member a long, shiny scar that Batou could identify as a burn wound from hot metal.

"Okay, Abdul," he said, hands gesturing toward the port. "Tell me what you told everybody else. You and two other guys were the ones to find the body, right? The one floating in the ocean?"

Abdul nodded, curly locks tossing about his ears. Batou could tell he was hesitant. After all, he had come to Japan and gotten a decent job, and like hell he wanted to endanger everything he worked so hard to get.

"Well…" the Arabic man started, rubbing the back of his head with a calloused hand, "Me, Hyuga, and Satoru, _saw_ the first body--you know, the one who had fallen off the B-7 warehouse, but we weren't the people who found it. Then we started our nightly shifts on, oh, I think the 8th… We were pulling in some big-time fishing boats who ship in crab from the Atlantic."

Batou quickly questioned, "Where exactly did you find the kid?"

"Right under the pier. We only saw her because Hyuga was walkin' over a missing chunk of the planks and saw an eye and nose showing through. Freaked him out enough that he screamed. That's when we noticed their was a child floating there.

"I jumped into the water with Satoru and pulled the girl up. By this point, she was still alive.. Y'know, you could see her chest moving and her eyes looking around. But the ocean was pretty damn cold that night… so… She probably froze to death. Th'girl was as blue as the color itself…"

He looked down, dark, foreign eyes filling with regret. "That poor kid."

Batou stared at the mournful worker for a moment before contacting Togusa.

"Hey, what's going on at your end?" he sent, folding his arms and nodding off Abdul as he went off to his next duty. _"Are they all matching in their stories?"_

"Yeah, Kiba Satoru and Toshio Hyuga have the exact same story…" Togusa responded,_ "I don't think they had anything to do with the mess, personally. I even got the memory of the incident. It seems genuine and seems like it isn't tampered with."_

"Keep your mind open, though," the large man commanded.

"Of course, of course. I'm moving back to where you are. I'll meet you at the B-7 warehouse, right?"

"Right."

"Um, Batou was it?" A voice said from beside him. Batou turned to see Abdul once more, but he seemed a little more squeamish than before, standing like he had an impossible weight on his shoulders.

Either I'm the scariest thing in the world, or this guy's the most abused puppy I've ever met, Batou thought to himself, cringing inwardly. 

"Yeah, that's my name. What is it? You're not done with your statement?"

Abdul sighed. "I… There's just something else I wanted to tell you. The few workers here are a little hesitant to say, but it might be important, so I figured I'd tell you. Every night, that girl's figure appears by the docks… just staring out toward the sea…"

"And you didn't bother telling anyone?" Batou said with exasperation in his voice, "You're not telling me you think this kid's watchin' out toward the bay… an _alive_ one?"

"We all know it isn't human," Abdul continued, throwing his hands out, "It disappears when we get too close to it. What's also weird is that only people with cyberbrains can see it. That's why I can, but Hyuga can't. He's got a normal, human head."

Batou bit his lip. "Every night? It shows up every night?"

The man nodded. "That's right."

Abdul pointed his index toward a spot a little ways away from them, where the girl would stand, waiting, watching. Batou listened to this man tell him of her bloodied outfit and her listless brown eyes; he couldn't help but wonder just what the hell the world was coming to.

But he _did_ know one thing. That sure as hell was no 'ghost'--not if cyberbrain users were the only ones to see it. No, this was a technological matter that had science behind it. It had to of. He thought that it could've been a hologram, maybe a hotspot where a special virus would hack into a person and install an image. In his line of work, things like that were a fucking daily ritual.

"Thanks a lot. This might be a case breaker, buddy," he told Abdul, before walking off to find his smaller companion. "It'll be hours before she'll appear, then," he continued, this time to himself only.

Just imagining a girl with a crimson-sprayed dress, the hem fluttering across the salty winds like a bird's wings slowly extending… It gave him shivers. He remembered the horrible things from Project Sunset, how weakly those children grabbed his fingers, yet how powerful their eyes were even as they glazed over with death.

They must've thought he was a saint or something, grabbing for him like they did.

He rubbed his temples as he walked now, his round, fake eyes displaying none of the raw emotion he felt. He let out a sigh as the images rolled across his vision like strips of old film.

"Hang in there… You'll be okay… Keep on breathing, kid…"

"What the Hell was the American Empire thinking?!"

"A lot of these guys are kids… all of them are fucking women and kids…"

Eventually, he had to snap the goddamn line of footage sometime or another. Dwelling on it all would get in the way of his job as a cop, and that's the last thing he wanted. After all, he should've put it behind him once Amoretti was captured…

Batou stopped on the spot the girl supposedly stood, hands thrust into his pockets, lips drawn into a grim line that meant he was thinking. He was thinking about just what everything looked like when it would be pieced together. What it all would look like if he took a step back and really stared at it.

The facts were there, but things were never as they seemed.

"Hey! Big guy! What're doing all the way out on the dock?" he heard Togusa call from behind him. The wooden planks creaked loudly under his feet as he turned to face the other man. Togusa waved him over, and he walked quickly to his companion.

"I was just thinking about what the hell's going on," he responded, running his big hand over the top of his head and looking up at the sun in the distance. He heard the loud buzzing of a plane overhead, the noise droning out whatever thoughts he had remaining in that damned fleshy brain of his.

The Major's voice was what eventually made his mind clear: _"Togusa, Batou, get back here as soon as possible! Section 6 member Kenji Mikimura has been assassinated!"_

_

* * *

_

Author's Notes: The next chapter will unclutter everything for you and piece some things together.


	6. 0000005: Nigori

_

* * *

_

Marriage does not transform a man's nature, nor uproot habits that have grown with his years: the licentious imagination continues its secret blight, though the outward conduct may be restrained. The man continues to be what he was, selfish and unrestrained, though he may be outwardly moral in deference to the opinion of that "society" which having previously excused his vices, now expects him to be moral. And what of that other being, his partner - his wife - into whose presence he brings the secret consciousness, it may be the hideous morbid fruits, of his former impurity? Can any man, with any pretension to true manliness, contemplate calmly the shame - the cruelty - of the fact that such marriages are not exceptional, especially in the upper classes?

The Double Standard of Morality

Josephine Butler, _The Philanthropist_ (October, 1886)

* * *

0000005. Nigori

* * *

They all sat in silence, some with arms crossed over their chests, some with a leg or two crossed. The fluorescent lights buzzed above them like some sort of whispering omen, and if Zahran had any real belief in foreboding symbols, he would be even more nervous.

He shifted his gaze from one Section 9 member to the next, finally resting his sight on Daisuke, who was quietly figuring out a few choice words in his head. Zahran pursed his dark lips and uncomfortably moved his body against the couch.

Motoko's eyes were half-lidded with grave seriousness. Batou leaned forward, his corded back arched forward. Saitou chewed on his cheek. Paz lit up another cigarette and placed it against an artificial mouth. Ishikawa sighed with old lungs that seemed _too_ old. Borma tapped his foot and rubbed the back of his bald head.

This was Section 9 at a moment of crisis.

His eyes breathed in the scene before him, taking in every single detail of just what it was like when things got ominous. Watching these people he was to work with gave him a split-second image of his homeland in South Africa--of a group of soldiers sitting in the back of their van, waiting to fight with their pitiable rifles… They were only children, he remembered, as was he.

He snapped out of his trance. Aramaki was standing.

"At 7:04 PM today, Kenji Mikimura of Section 6 was brutally murdered inside his home. The footage to his cameras were destroyed by gunfire. Any computers cataloguing these recordings were hacked into, and all footage was erased. Everything in his home was shut off… I'm guessing right before the assassin moved in and murdered him."

A breathless silence. Zahran leaned in like a little boy watching Saturday cartoons, looking as though the main hero of the show was in a pinch. His eyes betrayed no uncertainties.

"After reviewing the message sent to Ishikawa and matching the fact that both happen simultaneously, we can only assume the hacker and the assassin are either one in the same, or a duo. We can also assume that they have something to do with the clones found near and at Yamasaki Harbor."

"Obviously, these hackers are enemies to the men who did this," Ishikawa added. "They called them 'disgusting men' and said we've seen their 'despicable acts'."

"Does that mean Mikimura's in on it?" Batou asked.

"Possibly. Or maybe these hacker/assassins want to kill off people who didn't help when they should of. Mikimura was exactly a saint in his actions," said Saitou.

Aramaki grunted as he sat. Zahran turned his attention to the tall screen to the left of him, where information was currently forming in neon green font. An image came up of Mikimura, lying across his kitchen floor with blood flowing from all areas of him. Bullet holes riddled him like shells on a shore. Near his once pleading, limp hand was a knife he was probably planning on making dinner with.

To the right, on the screen, there was an image of him alive, a portrait for an ID, most-likely. He looked younger in it, despite the fact that it was only a year beforehand. Zahran observed these two images keenly, without a sound.

"Here's what we know about the cloned children case," Togusa said, rising to his feet and standing coolly in front of the window of data, like a teacher about to lecture. He flicked his hand out toward the cascading information.

"The kids were, with what we could gather, sex dolls used in some hush-hush ring somewhere. They were created with an almost human body so the buyer would feel more satisfied with his purchase… Of course, they made sure the clones all had cyberbrains to enhance the experience."

Togusa spoke with bitterness in his voice at the last bit. More than one nose wrinkled from revulsion in that room.

"Dr. Harvey's report taken by Paz and Saitou state that almost all of them suffered from sexual and physical mistreatment."

Zahran glanced at Paz and Saitou. The two seemed to soften their eyes, even though their bodies stayed rigid (though, it could've been the rookie's mind playing tricks).

Borma spoke up from the sidelines after Togusa finished. "We're also thinking this 'ghost' these workers were seeing is actually a hologram created as… I think, an SOS. After all, there has to be an original kid somewhere out there. Who knows what happened or is happening to her."

Zahran shuddered to think.

"That is something we shouldn't ignore," The Major said, uncrossing her legs, "This child may be sending a message that could lead us to the assailants responsible for all of this."

"Precisely." Aramaki ran his hand over Dr. Harvey's report. "If we are to stop this torment, we need any possible lead we can find. We will go to Yamasaki Harbor to locate and investigate this 'ghost child'."

"Chief, here's what I don't get," Zahran finally said quietly, after all was said and done about this supposed apparition, "Why would people that are against the maltreatment of these children kill off a politically strong member of a Section? Why would people that are supposedly good in a sense start to kill off those who would try to apprehend the ring operators?"

He waited for a moment. They all listened.

"Perhaps he's more involved with this entire case than we think. Also, he's not the only political figure to have a shady death within a few months. Maybe these hackers that sent us the note have been killing for a while."

"Maybe they're feeling cocky…"

"Or maybe they're desperate for someone to stop them from killing again," The Major said in a firm voice that made them all tingle with some strange feeling of uneasiness.

* * *

Zahran Coetzee spent the rest of his off-time at a nice bar down the street, where the air smelled a little like the campsite of a war. He sat on the third seat down, not by choice: his minor case of OCD was toward seating arrangements, of all things. He sat with his hands cupped around one repeatedly empty glass. Thanks to science, a man could drink until he was weak in the knees--well, except the cool part was that he would _never_ be weak in the knees with how the cyborg body handles its liquor. 

He heard the noise of someone getting ready for a drink next to him, and turned guardedly. The Major had ordered something or another on the rocks, and looked to him with a wicked smile that Zahran adored.

"We have a tough case ahead of us. Does drinking really help you?" she asked with a shake of her glass. He watched her quietly before looking at his own drink. He thought about his answer, about the truth of the matter for him. He eventually smiled, looking tired and loving.

"It is only time God leaves my heart at rest… The only time I can ignore the troubled world around me. In Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Botswana… All the places where I fought in those sad civil wars, drinking was actually the only thing I was good at at first. I didn't become warrior until I stabbed a men dead. That's what they told me, anyway."

He recalled the moments after his first kill--something a true human being never forgets, even as they lay on a deathbed. The man's head was severed cleanly and sat at the young boy's bare, stained feet. The eyes were blank as they looked up at him. They were accusing. The mouth sat open and blackness oozed from what was left of the blood in his head.

The Major ran her hand up Zahran's back and left it atop his shoulder. It was almost as if his fears and sorrows from then connected to her, for she nodded with eyes closed and he drank quickly.

Another empty glass.

"I just…" he said in his thick accent, voice torn so from a bit of shrapnel to the voice box, "I do think about it often, especially when I have to handle such case… you know, with children."

She nodded. Zahran was only a boy at the time of these violent wars.

"But you're in Section 9 for your amazing skills in combat. Whether you want to believe it or not, it's conflict that has linked most of us together into one unit. That includes you."

He nodded. On a different night at this tiny, insignificant bar, Batou had told him about how she took out good ol' Saitou with that incredible brain of hers. When Zahran had commented on someday stealing Major as a wife, Batou tensed with surprise and jealousy; Zahran had laughed as his friend's sad little crush.

"I sometimes envy Togusa," he said, suddenly, "You know, he's had a wonderful life. Two healthy children, a caring wife… I only wish that my home was so fruitful. Japan and America need to stop telling themselves their lands are corrupt… From a African boy's eyes, they are like Eden gardens."

Motoko watched as the man's eyes twinkled. The corners of his lips were upturned no longer, smiling up at nothing at all. For a moment, he was a dreaming child in Zimbabwe again.

* * *

It was morning now, so bright that the sun loomed in their eyes like a large godly fruit. Batou's eyes turned golden in the radiance of the daylight. It was a combination of Motoko, Batou, Zahran, and Togusa that made their search team. The four waited patiently, away from the dock, sometimes visited by Abdul or Hyuga who had to pass by on their shifts. The workers told them that the fair child would appear on the dock soon, basking in the sunshine with a gloomy look on her face. 

The Major sat with her arms out on her knees. She sat quietly on her haunches for a moment and then stood up. "Hopefully, she doesn't play hooky today."

"Ooh, that would fucking suck," Batou said, obviously not wanting to wait his entire day away on a ghost story. If this had been the year 2000, the whole idea would've been absolutely nutty. Togusa stifled a chuckle that Batou let slip, just once.

From the corner of Batou's eye, he could see Motoko's lithe body tense. Alarmed, he turned his gaze to the transparent child standing at the end of the dock, her raven hair blowing in the wind, which was odd, because there was no breeze on that warm morning.

The Major stood up, closely observing the child and her bizarre, untouchable form. "Batou, Togusa, I want you to search the surrounding areas for any sort of device that would display this. Most-likely a place with a window, or an opening."

She could feel them nod and scramble. Zahran stood at her side, peering at the back of his leader's head and wondering what she had up her sleeve. Her eyes stared off in the distance of the sea, the pupils swelling as she focused away to another world.

The net.

Her eyes shifted back and forth, over and over, searching for something. When she found what she was looking for, the crimson eyes focused once more--focused on the African before her.

"I didn't pick up any viruses, so they aren't randomly sending them. And I can't pick up any stray signals that would lead to people getting this girl's image…"

He saw what she was getting at.

"She's definitely a hologram."

As soon as he said this, Togusa's voice boomed in all of their heads.

"You guys need to get to Warehouse A-3, now_."_

Zahran jumped into action with the Major close by his side, their artificial bodies in unison, moving faster than a normal man would achieve. Both of their faces, though different, both held a look that was completely alike.

Something bad would await them.

Batou was already at Warehouse A-3, rushing through the cracked doors. It was dark inside, but light from the outside filtered through a pair of large, dying windows. They stared into the place, at Togusa standing in awe.

At the end of the room was a machine--so small that they almost didn't see it--that was most-likely the cause of the ghostly images on the docks. Near these machines were a few girls, all with the same hair as the specter, all fair-skinned, all so thin that they seemed fake. Three of them lay across each other, their eyes slicked with death that hadn't happened too long ago. Their arms were spread out in huddled messes, fingers curled around nothing.

One of the girls, however, sat propped on the wall, nude as well. Her scarred chest breathed in and out and her head lolled side to side. She acknowledged the four's presence for a moment, her knobby knees shaking with cold. Slowly, this poor girl's body slid down the metal walls, a soft moan escaping her lips. Batou moved forward and slipped his hand under her armpit, around her feeble body. His brow furrowed with sympathy.

Zahran's hands moved across his shoulders and before his chest, a small prayer leaving his parted lips. Togusa stared still, his brown eyes filled with disbelief. Motoko walked toward Batou--this man was holding something endangered.

She ran her hand across the unconscious girl's ivory torso, across little ribs and a protruding collarbone that seemed too doll-like. Motoko sighed.

They were the missing ones. And she was the living one.

* * *

_A/N: I hope it's getting interesting for y'all. _

_Zahran is a character I've been planning on doing just as a random new character. I wanted him to be interesting, and not some stupid guy who's there just because. I do hope that he's not a bother, and that you like him. I'm passionate about the crazy stuff going on out in Africa, and you can only imagine what it may be like in the future... I hope it doesn't keep on going the way it is over there._

_I also wanted to point out that Ghost in the Shell is sooo difficult to write about, mainly because it's so scientific and depends on real things/events. So if my writing seems a little too vague or doesn't fit something from the show to a T, forgive me. I don't mean to screw up such an awesome series. :P_

_Anyway, I'll see ya' soon. Much love!_


	7. 0000006: Onryou

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* * *

_

The consequences of sins of impurity far out-last the sin itself, both in individuals and in communities. Worldly and impure men have thought, and still think, they can separate women, as I have said, into two classes - the protected and refined ladies who are not only to be good, but who are, if possible, to know nothing except what is good; and those poor outcast daughters of the people whom they purchase with money, and with whom they think they may consort in evil whenever it pleases them to do so, before returning to their own separated and protected homes.

The Double Standard of Morality

Josephine Butler, _The Philanthropist_ (October, 1886)

* * *

0000006. Onryou

It was a long time ago when the Major realized life was a delicate balance, capable of being completely disrupted by something as simple as hunger or thirst. In her life of being a cold, steel product of technology, she watched many uncyborized people die. They were shot or stabbed, bled out, and then passed away. When she watched her first enemy breathe his last breath on the battlefield, it also occurred to her death was truly a very simple thing. There was nothing more to it. No one questioned its finality--not even cyborgs or the world of machinery.

She sat in a room plagued by stark whiteness, her body extraneous compared to the pale walls. The hospital was cold and haunting to someone like her--the last time she had entered it, it was to make sure one of her men wasn't going to die on her. She recalled a heart beating in her chest that she knew she didn't necessarily have. On that day, she remembered once more what she had realized when she was a little girl:

Life was a delicate balance.

The little girl they had found at the docks lay in front of her, wrapped up in white sheets and technology. It was not _her_ pulsing with life, but the machines about her. They made soft noises that somehow calmed Motoko's rigid shoulders. She stared quietly at the child's face, surprised at how dead she looked. Her ivory body camouflaged her into the mattress. She had barely made it to the hospital, she was so weak. The Major's best guess was that the sex 'clones'--sex dolls was deemed semi-inappropriate by her and her team--had all went to the warehouse after drifting in the water. How they had lived for so long, no one really knew. The body was capable of living for days without food, though, so it did not stay rooted in her mind for long.

What she was more so interested in was just who this child was. That question had to be left in the dark, for now. The girl had a chance of dying, and that meant that the numerous inquiries they all had was in danger of not being solved. In fact, the chance of the case being solved was extremely low, considering they had no leads, no suspects, no nothing, save a dying child.

She looked at the dark-haired, fair-skinned sex clone and carefully brushed a lock of hair from her face. In an instant, she saw herself, frail and near-death, the victim of a cruel fate. Her parents' faces were so blurry that they were just jumbled colors. A rush of memories from the plane crash was all that came to her, vividly.

She stood up, smiling down at the child. She noticed a tattoo on the girl's arm similar to all of the other clones: the number 20.

"20, is it? Then I suppose I'll call you Nijuu for now," she said in a mother's voice, "Looks like you'll put up a fight."

Her long fingers wrapped around the railings of the bed and squeezed. For a moment, her powerful manner was pulled to the side. She allowed humanity to slip into her voice, thick with emotion that made her continue to be human.

"We'll figure out who did this."

As she walked toward the door, listening to the sounds of the apparatus fade, a new, loud sound interrupted her thoughts. It was Ishikawa's voice, harsh compared to the hospital setting she walked into.

"Everyone, this is important. The hacker tried to enter our computers again, but this time I've got him under my thumb. I tracked the IP and I'm sending it to you right now! The guy's screen name is Philosoph777--I traced his name and also found some chat logs of him and his rebellious friends. He's got the credentials to be our prep, all right!"

Motoko's dark eyes narrowed as information flashed across her peripheral vision. Her slow walk escalated into a brisk race through the hallway. She avoided the few people there and spun on her heel, jumping through one of the open windows and landing expertly on the sidewalk below.

"I'm on my way to the location!" she sent, _"I want everyone available to move on out! Ishikawa, I want you keeping your eye out there!"_

She heard her team's voices all respond in her head, as she rushed passed the throngs of people, toward her nearby car. The air was thick around her now, palpable from the tension that had suddenly gripped her by the shoulders once again.

Perhaps now the case could truly unfold.

* * *

Togusa pressed his body against the wall behind him, his Mateba gripped tightly in his hand. The sky was red, tawny in appearance, and it layered the other members of Section 9 in a glossy film of hot light. The human man turned and peered harshly at the fading sun to the side of him, his concentration cut for a brief moment.

Luckily, the Major spoke almost as soon as it did, strong and indomitable.

"All right--this is the location Ishikawa sent to us, so that could mean that there's some tricks around here. I asked that there be a scan for cameras, and we found nothing, but we still need to assume the enemy is one up on us. Togusa, Batou, I want you to secure the back of the house. Saitou is currently set up nearby to back us up and look for any problems."

"Roger that," Togusa sent, brow furrowed. 

She continued, _"Zahran, Borma, I want you to cover the left side of the house--there is an additional door there. Paz and I will ram right through the front. Even if he's not here, we'll need to be completely air-tight."_

Zahran and Borma disappeared stealthily, their bodies flickering and then vanishing completely in the safety of their thermo-optic camouflage. Togusa looked at Batou and nodded grimly. The sky was hotter than before, suddenly. He wiped his hand across his brow and paced after his tall companion while his body, too, twinkled out of existence.

Togusa looked around the small backyard. The big guy left large prints in the grass which made Togusa grimace--the suspect was either smart enough to place grass down for such an occasion, or lucky he had bought a home that was previously owned by someone with a green thumb. If he _did_ have any undetectable cameras, he would know they were there instantly.

He and Batou closed in on the backdoor, guns drawn from their holsters, the noses of their firearms downcast. Batou nudged Togusa quietly and nodded. They were to move in soon--such a realization made Togusa's heart crash into his sternum, making his chest raw with emotion and adrenaline. He wiped his brow again. The glowing sun dipped into the skyscrapers near him.

Batou took a few steps forward and threw his foot out against the door. The weak structure snapped under the weight of his force and sent the large chunk of wood flying inward. Togusa could hear something inside the house creak: a computer chair, speaking as weight lifted swiftly off it. All around the house, doors crumbled and members of Section 9 filtered in like racing ants, all armed to the teeth and ready to fight.

With this in mind, a new steadfastness welled up in Togusa and he ran into the house with Batou in front of him, his gun raised. This hacker--this Philosoph777--stood near his computer, brown eyes filled to the brim with fear. The man reached for a gun sitting on his computer desk, but Togusa was one step ahead of him, and fired off one round him his Mateba. The bullet twirled in the air, rapidly approaching its target--Philosoph777's hand exploded in blood. A scream emerged from the man's throat.

With pain as a crude pair of handcuffs, the man was overcome with agony long enough for the Major to flip over the desk and kick the man violently in the chest. Crashing to the floor, Philosoph777 had no chance to strike back; Motoko landed gracefully next to him and took him by the arm. Soon the man was on his stomach, arm twisted dangerously behind his back.

Another scream, but this one was full of fear and panic, not pain. Blood ran from his fingers down the Major's clutched hand, in red rivers to her elbow. Her mouth twisted into an angry line as she applied pressure to the tormented limb.

"Don't move, you son-of-a-bitch. We've got a few questions for you. And don't think I'll be easy on you--I don't like when someone tries to pull a gun on my men, and I especially hate it when they hack into my home."

Togusa smiled faintly and shrugged away the pounding heartbeats in his head. The energy he had felt before was going away alongside the peril. He glanced at Zahran, who stared wide-eyed at their leader. A bright smile lit his face and he chuckled despite the situation.

"Are you Philosoph777?" Batou asked crouching down to the level of the man. The dark-haired man cried out at the throbbing muscle in his shoulder.

"Y-y-yes, yes, I am!"

"Heh, good. You know better than to lie, don't you?"

The pressure on his arm lessened. Philosoph777 grunted and lowered his head.

"You're Section 9, a-after all… Lying is a waste on you. Y-you probably have your sources 100 percent on the dot."

Pleased with his level of torment, she slipped a pair of handcuffs on him and allowed him to sit up. With all of Section 9 before him, Philosoph777's face gained pallor, and he swallowed hard.

"Now tell us exactly how you are associated with the death of Kenji Mikimura!" The Major asked, her voice gaining back the lusty softness it normally had. Blood continued to drip off Philosoph777's fingers. Quietly, The Major reached down into the man's pocket. It was his wallet, sewing messily coming apart. She flipped it open and smirked.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Tell us exactly how you are connected with the assassination of Kenji Mikimura, Mr. _Shinta Miyazaki_."

Shinta groaned as she tossed the small wallet over her shoulder. He looked up shakily at the others. Paz crossed his arms and stared down at the boy-like man with his thin, dark eyes.

"Best tell us, unless you want to be fried in a chair."

Shinta squeezed his eyes shut, sweat dripping across his face.

"Josephine, forgive me," he whispered, and then continued on in a stronger, albeit nervous voice, "I only informed you of the murder. I wasn't the one to murder Mikimura, I swear it! It was all the work of Josephine…"

Togusa peered hard at him. "Josephine? What, is she American?"

Shinta shook his head. "No, a Japanese girl. She came to me needing help because she wanted revenge on dogs like Mikimura! So I suited her up with some cybernetic enhancements and agreed to assist her by hacking into the Section 9 database and giving you messages. That's really all I did!"

The Major took an almost threatening step forward.

"Did this 'Josephine' have a last name, or is it a pseudonym?"

Shinta shook his head furiously, his mat of hair flying about his face. He leaned down now, his shoulders looking thicker, head bobbing a little.

"I… She isn't doing anything wrong!" he murmured.

"Murder sounds like a unlawful activity to me," Togusa retorted.

"No! If you knew, you wouldn't judge so harshly! If you knew!"

"Knew what?!" Batou growled, "Stop your whining and speak clearly, you dumb ass! Tell us exactly why this Josephine is such a little angel to you! She's murdered a man--possibly more. She sounds like a regular demon."

Shinta glowered up at the man, biting his lip and saying nothing. Eventually, his tension faded off his face and he quietly submitted to their harsh gazes.

"They all deserve what they get, and Josephine isn't done killing!" He clenched his teeth. "Josephine's going to kill them all! Just watch!"

His computer suddenly flickered on--on the screen, it read the name Seymour Clermont.

* * *


	8. 0000007: Satsujinmisui

__

The double standard of morality owes its continued existence very greatly to the want of a common sentiment concerning morality on the part of men and women, especially in the more refined classes of society. Men are driven away at an early age from the society of women and thrown upon the society of each other only - in schools, colleges, barracks, etc.; and thus they have concocted and cherished a wholly different standard of moral purity from that generally existing among women. Even those men who are personally pure and blameless become persuaded by the force of familiarity with male profligacy around them, that this sin in man is venial and excusable. They interpret the ignorance and silence of women as indulgent acquiescence and support.

The Double Standard of Morality

Josephine Butler, _The Philanthropist_ (October, 1886)

* * *

0000007: Satsujinmisui

* * *

__

"Saitou here--I've positioned myself outside Seymour Clermont's place."

Saitou sat hunched with the darkened sky as his background, looking through his scope to the home of the killer's newest target. Saitou scanned over the information regarding this Seymour Clermont, his eye wandering the world through the lens of his sniper scope. Clermont was apparently a foreign actor stopping into Japan for a big part in some old-school samurai movie. Saitou wasn't one to care for the theater--he wasn't completely sure why. Perhaps it was the fiction of the tragedies. Perhaps he already sat still too much as it was.

Batou once joked it was because the screen wasn't round, and Saitou almost agreed that that could've been a factor in it.

_"Saitou, we're going in. If you see anything out of the ordinary, don't hesitate,"_ the Major sent, her voice lined with the lipstick of business. Saitou smirked at her urgency and trust in his eyes.

_"Of course."_

He laid down across the rooftop, his sniper sitting expertly across his side, nuzzle aimed toward the window of Clermont's home. He squinted into the glassy circle and saw an enlarged planet bathed in the murkiness of midnight, one that he could cup in his hand. It was a feeling he had been drawn to since his youth, when he was first given the long gun. The touch of cold metal on his tiny, insignificant fingers made them something, because the moment he clutched the weapon, his mind swirled up a dirt devil of strength in his mind.

When did the desire to fight come into him? Probably at that moment.

Through the scope, he saw very closely into the home through the living room window. After a moment of watching, he was alerted by the flash of struggling shadows. Something hideous was occurring in that house, and it was even more obvious when Seymour Clermont's motionless, dead body fell into his view.

__

"Major, they're here all right! And they succeeded in their mission!"

__

"Shit!" came from the end of his line, _"We're up on our way! Can you see the killer?!"_

"Nope, not yet, but the stats we got on the house says this is the only possible window to go out. We've got them right where we want them!"

As soon as he finished speaking, a gloomy figure walked out in front of the window. Saitou's shoulders went rigid at the sight of the enemy, small and thin, a plain mask covering their youthful identity. It was obviously a woman, but he couldn't tell the precise age. Her entire body was concealed by a skintight black attire, and in one hand, there was the clear symbol of death--a knife, lit up red in the moon by the carving of Clermont's body.

"Got her in my--" he both spoke and sent, but as he did, he was interrupted by a gleam up above him from a sniper rifle. His heart skipped a beat as he rolled out of the way of a bullet. He dashed across the roof, his Hawkeye watching where he ran and his flesh eye watching the other sniper. He glanced at the window of the Clermont residence and saw the window was thrown open.

__

"Major, I'm sorry. The assailant isn't alone--they've got a sniper on their side!"

As he said this, he spun on his heel and aimed his gun toward the higher roof, where his opponent would be lining up a shot. He swallowed hard and felt the sweat dash across his sharp jaw line. There was nowhere to hide, no place to retreat and think, and so the only course of action was a stupid gamble on which one of them was better at their timing and aim.

He fired one shot. It slid effortlessly through the air, invisible to the human eye under the veil of black the clouds brought with them. As his bullet moved, so did the other sniper's, and to Saitou's concerns it had found its mark. The Section 9 sharpshooter's body jerked back and blood spurted from his abdomen. His teeth gritted hard together, his fingers squeezed down on the rifle's grip, and for once in his life, Saitou cursed his job.

His head smacked the ground hard and he was deaf, blind, and mute for a few seconds, until the world gained distinctness and his body felt pain. His hand laid over the gunshot on his torso, where black oozed out; the thought that he had been hit bad was only then hitting him in the haze of vertigo that had grabbed him by the brain stem. He rolled onto his knees and grunted, feeling the taste of blood from his bitten cheek. The amount of crimson-turned-black under his knees--soaking into his knees--startled him. He slid forward, trying to move again, think, do something to win his enemy. He reached and grabbed the barrel of his sniper rifle, hoping the power he felt touching it would cure his immortality.

Another shot from above. This one tore through his shoulder, through bone and tissue that he knew the guy didn't want him having; not if he was to win against him. Saitou cried out faintly, allowing his head to hang limp to regain the use of his body. They were such wounds that numbness would come only close to death, so he welcomed the white-hot pain lancing up and down his body.

He crawled forward, smearing blackness across the rooftop, and finally lost all of his strength. He fell forward onto his forearm and laid limp there, his eye darting to see something that wasn't cloudy. He could make out two feet, walking stealthily near him.

__

The killer has cyborg parts. She jumped up here.

His eye flickered.

__

"Saitou?! Saitou, answer me! What the hell's going on up there?! Where are you?! Answer me, dammit! Saitou!"

Saitou managed to turn his face up toward the thin, black-clothed woman, and his lips parted to say something that refused to leave his mouth. Blood seeped out instead, warm and somehow welcoming.

"You Section 9 thugs are so predictable," the woman said, and Saitou realized he had been right. The person couldn't have been older than a teenager. There was no woman who had such a tiny and girlish voice.

She aimed her gun at his head and he listened to the world fade.


	9. 0000008: Bubaru

_

* * *

_

Women are guilty also in this matter, for they unfortunately have imitated the tone and sentiments of men, instead of chastening and condemning them; and have shown, too often, very little indeed of the horror which they profess to feel for sins of impurity. Now we have the profound conviction that not only must as many men and women as possible severally understand the truth concerning their relations to each other, but also that they must learn the lesson in each other's presence, and with each other's help. A deeply-reaching mutual sympathy and common knowledge must (if we are ever to have any real reform) take the place of the life-long separation and antipathetic sentiments which have prevailed in the past.

The Double Standard of Morality

Josephine Butler, _The Philanthropist_ (October, 1886)

* * *

0000008: Bubaru

With eye clamped shut tightly, with dry lips parted faintly to reveal gritting teeth, Saitou dreamed of things that had long been suppressed from his thoughts. Back in time when the buildings he had played in had crumbled into dust and friends he loved to love were six feet under, in unwelcoming black soil. The war was such a short one, and yet it caused so much pain among the throngs of people who were unfortunate to live there.

"Listen to me, Saitou, stay here and don't move. Okay?"

It was the last words his mother had ever told him, and he remembered her voice better than any mental photo. Her face was one shadowed by forgetfulness--and he was regretful that he had the strength to no longer remember her in life.

He sat in that small, semi-destroyed cellar for such a long time, he remembered. It could've been that long period of waiting that prepared him for being a sniper. He remembered his lips burning so horribly, his mouth red and flaking with dead skin that water would heal.

His mother had died days before he had gave up waiting. And that chain that linked he and his mother had snapped with her death and his youth.

It was strange. He hadn't dreamt of her and his family and the war since he was a young adult on the terrain of Russia during a sniping gig for some tall bastard with a long name. Now that he was dying, was he thinking about her again?

His eyeball darted one more time under its blanket of flesh and his eyelid snapped up and revealed a pupil plagued by weariness and fever. He wanted to sit up, to observe what Hell looked like, but he could only bite into his lip and strain stomach muscles that were damaged by a sniper's bullet.

Oh. That was right. He was shot by a sniper.

He stared at the ceiling--an average ceiling that told him the probability of him being in some enemy hideout was lower that it should've been. This was a normal home, with windows and striped wallpaper and shelves with too many books to count.

"You're kidding me," he murmured, feeling warmness roll in glistening drops down his sharp features. He tried to move again--this time his hand--but he found himself strapped down like a guy about to get experimented on; only, the thing he was so kindly laid on was a normal, soft bed. He even had light, white sheets sweetly laid over him, like a mother tending to the well-being of her sick boy.

His wound tingled.

"You shouldn't move very much."

He turned his head as far as he could, squinting through what he realized was darkness. His fever was burning a lot of his attention to details, it seemed. Whatever the case, he could make out, at least, the smell of perfume.

"You--you actually saved me? Why?" Saitou asked, mind dim. The woman leaned up on the doorway, arms folded and face basked in a inky shade. She moved her hand, but he didn't see it (he couldn't really see anything that well), and flicked on the lights. His head suddenly throbbed horrifically and he tossed a little in the binds around his legs and wrists. Blood rushed all through him, bundled up especially where the two bullets had marred his skin. His arm grew slick with blood that had seeped silently out.

"Ah, your fever must be worst than I thought," she said. She had gone from a bleak demonic thing to a shiny, glossy angel. Saitou's lips parted again and he managed to regain his senses. His head throbbed like a motherfucker, though, and it greatly skewed the beauty of the light hitting this strange woman's shoulders.

He caught a look at her face, and cursed himself. She was no older than twenty, with tiny lips and round eyes hidden behind a pair of reading glasses. It surprised him to see her, considering she was going to be wanted by a lot of guys--

Wait a minute. She was probably there to kill him off? Why would she rescue from a sure death? Was she a torturing type?

The woman sat down in a chair near him.

"Looks like the great sniper from Section 9 was a little too rash for this case, hm? Though, I hate to admit it, even with my life utterly dedicated to my sniping, I was still almost a victim of yours."

She touched a spot on her shoulder that made her body twitch faintly. Saitou suddenly got a pretty good idea of where his bullet had gone.

"Why show your face to me?" he spoke, His shoulders rippled with muscles as he attempted to shift in his place. Instead, he felt white-hot ache in his gut and relaxed his body.

"Because the world doesn't see me, while I see all of it."

"That's a sloppy assumption," Saitou managed, all the nerves on his body screaming at him. The light was almost too unbearable now. Why was the bulb so goddamn bright?

The sniper laughed at him and asked, "How so?"

"Because there's always a place higher than you."

"Even in the clouds, huh?"

"Of course," he replied, and his eyelid flicked with sleepiness he knew was the beginnings of losing consciousness.

"Mm, God?"

"No," he murmured, letting his tiredness start to take him away again, "Satellites."

He heard a soft laugh before disappearing under a thin film of dreams that used to be nightmares. In there, for a little while longer, he forgot where he was.

* * *

"Why did you stop me from killing him, Miho?"

Miho leaned onto her elbow, looking through the doorway, where Saitou slept restlessly. His fever had dropped, and his wounds seemed to be survivable; for some unbearably painful reason, Miho was happy--so happy that she could cry. Such an unsatisfying emotion it was.

"I didn't sign up with you to kill innocent people. I intend to kill those who committed those atrocious acts--not butcher normal people just trying to do their jobs. In this situation, whether you wish to accept it or not… he is not a target. He has done nothing to you, Josephine."

The other girl, face still concealed by the simple white mask, scoffed at Miho and sat down at the round wooden table. If someone where to remove the mask, the sniper set up carefully in the corner, the injured man in the other room… they would've looked like two common college kids. Just a couple of kids drinking some coffee.

"Thank you," Josephine said, slipping her mask off and revealing a teenaged girl with rosy cheeks and a pale complexion. Her eyes looked very tired. "Sometimes I become sinful and need someone to guide me back toward the light… Well, guide me back to a less dark place."

Miho smiled and sipped on her drink.

"Josephine," she replied, like a exasperated mother, "You aren't a terrible person. Do not make yourself out to be such a thing. To a boiled soldier like me, your like a child--very sweet and right in her ways. As a warrior, I can tell you what I've seen from you is angelic compared to the battlefield."

Josephine blushed. "…How do you get rid of this feeling?"

"Hm?"

"This… this burning, gross feeling… it's on my fingers, on my hands. When I try to wash it off, it seems to just get worse."

Miho leaned back, her white school-girl's shirt growing whiter in the light from the window. Her blackish eyes widened and softened.

"Josephine, blood from another is something you can never rid yourself of."

Josephine's eyes grew weepy, but her beautiful face lost no power, no ability to be a disturbingly incredible leader.

"Even though Mikimura and Clermont deserved it, I still can't help but wonder--no, that's not it. I still have the swelling, festering urge to kill the others, to kill the ones who did those horrible things to the clones. But I still feel like, with every man I kill, I am becoming them myself."

Miho pushed her coffee to the floor, allowing the contents to spill across the tiles in a way that was similar to how Seymour Clermont's blood had rolled. She walked across the table and wrapped her arms around Josephine's head, and embraced her into her chest.

"Murder is nothing compared to what they have done…" She opened her closed eyes, staring at nothing, thinking of everything. "When you hired me, it was nothing more than a job… but it was also because I related to everything that's happened. My mission became an ambition, if you can understand such a thing. I will make sure this ill deed has been buried for good. I can promise that, so long as I have my sniper rifle, I will use it to fulfill your only wish."

Josephine leaned into the other girl, feeling as close to her as their age. Her friend gave her one last squeeze and released her, and then focused her attention on Saitou once more, who had finally become relaxed in his pain.

"When you asked me why I spared him, you knew the real answer, didn't you?"

Josephine smiled in contentment, happy to see that Miho was just as sharp as her shooting was. She stood up next to her accomplice, placing her mask back over her face.

"Because he is you, right?"

* * *

_A/N: And here really marks the introductions of the main two 'villains'. I love writing for Saitou, Miho, and Josephine, so this chapter was more fun than the others (no offense to the other blokes!). I hope I got their personalities across fairly well with that tiny bit of dialogue between all three of 'em._

_Aaaaaand remember, reviewing equals chapters!_


	10. 0000009: Hitosagashi

* * *

Obviously, then, the essence of the great work which we propose to ourselves, is to Christianize public opinion, until both in theory and practice, it shall recognize the fundamental truth that the essence of right and wrong is in no way dependent upon sex, and shall demand of men precisely the same chastity as it demands of women.

The Double Standard of Morality

Josephine Butler, _The Philanthropist_ (October, 1886)

* * *

0000009: Hitosagashi

* * *

Saitou couldn't recall a time when he wanted someone to shoot his brains out. He had been shot in the chest once before, but the hospital had had a few choice drugs to take all of the pain away. However, this was an entirely different predicament: he was strapped down to a bed with a hole in his abdomen and shoulder, without any drug to soothe his burning body. His fever soared and his face flushed, and before long he was struggling against the straps around his wrists. An alarming dream--or was it a hallucination?--of his mother exploding into a blooming flower of blood made his agonies grow. Why wouldn't they just kill him? Why won't someone just put him _out of his misery_?

He screamed, "Just fucking kill me already...!"

He tried to push his body into the sweat-stained mattress, if though he could crush himself passed the fabric, into the afterlife. Just as he went to release another built-up cry of anger and agony and whatever else came with the burdens of gunshots, a tiny and unbelievably soft pair of hands touched his face. They slowly traveled across his cheeks, trailed across his jawline, over his chin.

"You complain far too much," a bodiless voice told him. He attempted to open up his burning eye, but he only saw blurry ceiling lights. There was a sharp prick in the sharp of his elbow, and before long his heartbeat slowed and his mind drifted away from the ache again.

"Do not worry, little sniper... I will set you free... But first I will take some of those files stored up in your cyberbrain..."

* * *

The night Saitou had vanished had bewildered the entire team. They had all raced up a winding pair of stairs in the hope that their sniper had not been killed. When they made it to the top of the building and kicked the door down, all they saw was a blood pool and Saitou's rifle, gleaming in the moonlight.

That had been three days ago. Three long, stressful days. No matter how many times they'd tried to pinpoint where he was via cyberbrain, no matter how many places they checked out, no matter how much digging they did on the net... they couldn't find the man. He had vanished, leaving only that large crimson stain on the roof...

The Major laid her head on the cool surface of her locker. The changing room was very still and quiet, where she could think and try to get a grip on her next course of action. The sniper was a valued member of the team, but more than that, he was a soldier that needed the aid of his major, and when she thought about the last message he'd sent her, her spine tingled.

_Major, I'm sorry._

"No, I'm sorry, Saitou... sorry that you feel you had to apologize to me..."

She bit her lip. When she had tried to track him by locating his cyberbrain, she was almost fried. Josephine, the name given by Miyazaki, was probably the mastermind behind that little stunt. Whatever the case, they would have to rely on old-school methods of finding a lost person. Looking. And that meant that the chances of Saitou being alive or living through the ordeal was going to steadily drop.

The question remained, however: Why, when they went to the roof, wasn't there a dead body? Why did they take Saitou? What reasoning did they have for keeping him alive? Perhaps they wanted information from him. The question was, for what purposes? They already seemed to know exactly who they wanted to kill, so what information would they possibly gather from his mind?

"Do they want information about us... to keep us further away from stopping them?" she murmured to the silence. She slid down onto the metal bench, hair dripping wet. She squeezed the shirt she held tightly between her fingers. Determination whirled in her bright red eyes. There was so much blood there, on the rooftop... She feared he was already dead. She feared that they had let him die.

If they had let him suffer and die...

She clenched her fist.

* * *

Batou walked into the lounge, where Ishikawa and Borma had been, typing away on their laptops in the hope that they would find out something involving their missing teammate. They had all been working diligently--Togusa hadn't slept for hours upon hours, Paz had been scanning the streets for any sign of information, and the Tachikoma had been doing their own good by surfing the net.

Nothing came up.

As the large man took a seat on the sofa, Ishikawa growled in disappointment and threw his head back into the cushions. Batou smiled sympathetically at how exasperated the older man was.

"Dammit, Saitou, where are you?"

They all remained quiet. Zahran walked past them, surveying their gloominess, before making his way toward the exit. He didn't bother with a coat as he left--cyborgs hadn't had much of a need for one. The front door of Section 9 Headquarters clicked open, swung, and clicked quietly back. Zahran felt no change in the climate, but the fogged sky and gray ambiance told him that this day was cold and dreary.

"Fitting, for the occasion," he said gloomily.

He walked down the street, going nowhere to find anything. He was of no use to the others if he were to stand around the place and look like a foolish newcomer. He wanted to find Saitou, not only because it would make the team sigh a breath of relief, but because this missing man was kind to him. He was welcoming, a good soldier, an excellent teammate. There was no way he wanted to let the man go to such a fate.

But...the question was, what could he do? He was merely a warrior, not a detective. He never thought himself of the smart caliber. His life never revolved around a school, but a gun, and a fully loaded one at that. There was no room for thinking, where he was from. You had to _act _and never dwell on it, or else your mind would have been lost.

Okay, what did he know? He knew that there had been one enemy sniper, and one girl: the assassin who killed off Clermont, and most-likely Mikimura. He knew that this girl was known by the name Josephine, and that she was somehow involved with the dead sex-clones. He knew that she had gotten Shinta Miyazaki to supply her with weaponry and cybernetics, and he knew that she had used him to hack into Section 9 to deliver a message.

She had sent them,_"…'And do you see the logical necessity involved in this?' _It wrote, _'It is that a large section of female society has to be told off--set aside, so to speak, to minister to the irregularities of the excusable man.' _

_"Well, I'll tell them. I'll tell all of those disgusting men who _dared _laid their stained fingers on _me._ What will you do, Section 9? What will you do, hm? You've seen their mark on the shores of your city. You've seen their despicable acts. Will you be the ones to kill me in order to save the beasts? _

_"It's just as Josephine Butler says… 'It is a fact, that numbers even of moral and religious people have permitted themselves to accept and condone in man what is fiercely condemned in woman.'_

_"…Even after the agonies the woman had to go through._

_"I will kill every one of those beasts… starting with Kenji Mikimura."_

She was a strong character, and they had figured out what she had based herself off of: a feminist named Josephine Elizabeth Butler, of England. She had been worried about the welfare of women, with a strange focus for the care of prostitutes. When the team had pulled up more information on Butler, they'd discovered she had been spurred onward toward the feminist movement when her six-year-old daughter had died. She was deeply religious and therefore abhorred the sin of prostitution, but thought of the women as people victimized by the double standard involving sexual morality...

She was a large benefactor to the repeal of a document entitled the Contagious Diseases Act. It had given magistrates the power to examine prostitutes for diseases, and if they were infected, they were to be locked up for months until cured. The problem with the act was that a policer officer simply had to point a finger to accuse a women and force an examination--if they refused, they would be put in jail. Many accused women lost their dignity and place in society, even if clean... the thought of being deemed a whore even made one of the women commit suicide.

Butler had called it 'surgical rape'.

Eventually, her hard work alongside other feminists and anti-act supporters had led to the damnable law to be repealed. But what really caught Section 9's eye was her work leaning toward the severity of child prostitution in London. It had to have been the reason the assassin had used her as a pseudonym, considering what the sex dolls had been used for...

Zahran looked down at the sidewalk he strode on, a small smile on his face.

'This woman seemed like a very courageous and strong person... I'm sure if more people like her are born, there may be hope for this world yet.'

Zahran made his way toward Clermont's residence, consumed in his own thoughts. He hoped that hanging around the residence with Paz would give them some sort of clue to go on, that it was better than nothing. As he neared a busy crosswalk, his cyberbrain seemed to malfunction for a brief moment. He shook his head and ducked his head, trying to hide the pain on his dark features. When the sharp ache subsided, he could see a masked face in his peripheral--in his head, where Section 9 members would normally appear.

'Are... Are you the one who has killed those two men? The one who took Saitou?' he sent to the mysterious mask, wincing at the after-effect of the 'hack'. The masked figure nodded. The mask was a woman's face--a Caucasian woman's face. He scanned it and found it to match the old photo of a woman named Helen Priscilla McLaren, a feminist involved with the Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts.

He narrowed his eyes.

'You've been watching me through my own cyberbrain, haven't you? You've been sucking up whatever information I've looked at.'

'You're correct. I have been prying into your personal affairs. I apologize... And it is true that I have been aiding in the murders of those sick dogs...'

Zahran leaned against the nearest building, not wanting to cause a disturbance by standing out on the curb; people had already began to eye his bizarre movements.

'It is true then, what Saitou had said--there is more than one person involved in these murders. Tell me, why are you doing this? And more importantly, where is my team mate?'

He knew that he would have to somehow figure out where this woman was speaking to him from. He had to assume she knew exactly where he was--she had to know that he was apart from the rest of the team. It would explain why she waited until he was far from the others.

'Your sniper is alive,' she replied, 'I have not killed him, if that's where your worries lie. No, he is safe and sound. A little ill, but it is to be expected of a man who's been shot. There's no need to search for a corpse... I can promise you that.'

'Why are you keeping him alive?' He paused. 'Nevermind, I get it. That is how you've managed to sneak into my connection. You traced back messages sent between him and I in the past?'

'Yes.'

'...Why are you talking to me, then? What is the purpose of talking to someone who is obviously not in the top ranks of Section 9? I would expect Kusanagi would have been a more suitable choice.'

The strange figure snickered behind her mask.

'This 'Major' would have back-hacked and trapped me by now.'

Zahran sighed, 'Making fun of the brainless thug?'

'Don't be ridiculous. You are far smarter than you give yourself credit for--if I had wanted a brainless thug, I would have went for your large, angry friend. That is precisely why I've contacted you, first and foremost... You are much like Josephine--not the real Josephine, but the one I know. You have both had your childhoods pulled out from under you. You are shadows now. You understand her.'

Zahran scanned the rooftops around him; if she were a sniper, then it was very possible she was watching his movements. He saw something gleam in the sunlight, and his eyes narrowed.

'...Huh, so you finally see me?' she sent. He held his breath.

'Cut to the reason why you're contacting me!' he growled.

'Very well. I have relocated to a very nice new abode, and as such I don't have room for a sweaty dog like your sniper. So, from the kindness of my heart, I shall send you the location of your missing 'Saitou'.'

Zahran stared intently on the gleam above.

'Not to doubt your kindness, but... why? Why are you returning him?'

'It's quite simple, Zahran Coetzee. Because I am not a mindless killing machine, just like you are not as well. I do hope you'll take better care of your friend. Keep a better eye on your comrades, okay? I don't like bringing strays into my home.'

As the feed broke off, an address wriggled itself into Zahran's memory bank. He rushed across the crosswalk at last, his heart racing. He contacted his superiors quickly, wondering if the strange Helen Priscilla McLaren impostor was still listening, pretending to vanish into the net.

'Major, can you hear me?' he sent.

'Zahran? What it is?'

She sounded tired, so he prayed she was in the mood for a surprising wake-up call. He turned and broke into a sprint when he reached an alleyway.

'One of the suspects--the sniper--has gotten in contact with me by using Saitou's cyberbrain data; it was under a private line. She's sent me where she has Saitou and told me he was alive. It may be a trap, but I'm not going to wait if it means Saitou's health is in further danger.'

There was a powerful silence at the other end. He could tell her mind was boiling with questions, with worries.

'I won't tell you to stay where you are--I will tell you to send me the address and be careful. I can't afford to lose two of my men, understand?'

'Understood, Major.'

'What else did she tell you?'

Zahran's mouth became a grim, firm line. He thought about what she had told him: that she and he were not mindless killing machines. It terrified him--that she probed deep enough to know he thought that often.

'Nothing we don't already know, I'm afraid. I've saved the conversation in text form--I'll send it to you right now, along with the address'

There was another pause.

'Got it. I've sent the information and address to Paz. He's close by, so he'll be able to assist you in case it's a set-up.'

Zahran breathed deeply as he came to a stop. The door in front of him was not far from the victim's apartment. The killers had been living a jog away from their targets. That had to mean that the sniper had moved on to a different home for a reason. That had to mean that a new target was in her scope.

What worried him was that the front door was located in a secluded alleyway. He took a hesitant step forward, his automatic drawn from its holster. There was the possibility that the place was rigged to explode, or that there was some other cruel trap awaiting him if he were to grab or turn that knob. But the thought of Saitou being inside had erased any hesitation from his mind. He ran backwards for a moment, aimed at the doorknob, and fired. The golden handle flashed and there was a loud pop. Nothing happened. Nothing blew up. that was a good sign.

He rushed forward and kicked the door open, his gun raised up and ready for action. As he went to go inside, he caught sight of Paz, who also had his firearm drawn and at his side. The other cyborg rushed down the alley and met Zahran at the entrance.

"I got the info. So, you think Saitou's really in there?" he asked. Zahran shrugged and nodded toward the insides of the building.

"Only one way to find out."

They both rushed through the front door, pressed back-to-back with their guns aimed. The living room was eerily silent and, expectantly, empty. Whoever had been living there cleaned it spotless. Paz looked behind the door and then traveled into the hallway, with Zahran close behind him. The path forked into two places: a flight of stairs and another hallway into the back of the home.

"I'll take the stairs. Meet me up there?" Zahran asked.

Paz nodded. "Just don't get yourself killed."

Zahran watched for a moment as Paz disappeared down the darkly lit corridor, then made his way up the stairs, with a sharp eye out for any booby traps. He was surprised and thankful to find the area clear. He noticed that the rest of the house was also blank of any objects. When he wondered just how they had moved out without alerting Section 9, he realized they probably didn't have anything in the place to begin with. When the killers left, they took nothing but their weapons and their intentions.

The bedroom door was wide open. He had slowly walked through the doorway, still on the alert, when he caught sight of a hand in the darkness. The closer he walked, the more he saw: a hand connected to an arm, connected to a shoulder, connected to a neck... to a sweat-covered face.

Saitou.

He rushed forward and put his hand on the man's bandaged chest. The sniper flinched and his eye opened weakly.

"...Zahran..."

The black man smiled at his friend, his eyes revealing a level of relief that Saitou had not seen in a long time.

"I was worried that I would not hear you speak ever again, my friend."

* * *

Yamasaki Harbor was alive once more with the sound of workers. The sex dolls had all been taken from the sea, left to be examined by the man called Dr. Harvey. Miho had taken off her mask and now stood in the middle of the dock, where the ghostly girl used to stand before Section 9 had shut down the hologram. There were no more ghosts late in the night.

The sniper smiled as the wind rushed through her hair. She enjoyed the feeling.

"She's waiting for me... I'd better get moving..." she spoke quietly to herself. She reached into her bag and pulled out the mask Zahran had known her by. With one last look at it, she let it slip from her fingers and fall into the cold waters below. A sigh escaped her lips, as the wood behind her clicked with the sounds of footsteps. The worker, Abdul Haq, stood behind her, holding a large bucket as he wiped away sweat from the day's labor.

"Miss, you shouldn't stand over here, y'know... The ghost might decide to come back and get you," he smiled, jokingly.

Miho turned and stared at the man through round-rimmed glasses.

"I think the ghost has already found me, mister."

* * *

A long wait, but a long chapter. I hope it wasn't too boring to read. :C


End file.
